Free Republic

Paying federal workforce costs taxpayers $1.1M per minute, according to a pro-transparency group, Open The Books December 27, 2017 by Mark Tapscott James P. Cochrane earns $250,335 annually as chief marketing and sales officer for the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), making him the highest paid public relations employee of the federal government. The USPS lost $5.1 billion in 2016. Right behind Cochrane is Stephen Katsanos, who pulls down $229,333 as a public affairs official for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). And the third highest-paid federal public relations employee is Titus Simmons, also of the FDIC, at $215,248, according to...

In the end, the announcement was too good to be true. L.A. was going to get a “generous gift” — a bridge across the Los Angeles River, constructed with private money. Six years later, city leaders are ready to build the project. But it’s definitely not free. Instead, the council voted Friday to move forward with a $16.1-million “cable-stayed” steel bridge connecting Griffith Park and Atwater Village, with taxpayers shouldering about three-fourths of the cost. The cost of the roughly 325-foot span has gone up repeatedly in the intervening years, despite nearly $3.9 million in construction funding donated by a...

(Salt Lake Tribune) – The $2 million cashier’s check was drawn at a St. George bank Nov. 5, 2010. From there, it was sent by FedEx to a Los Angeles attorney who represented Ireland-based Full Tilt Poker. Made out to “Mail Media LTD” — a Full Tilt-owned entity used to launder online-gambling funds — the millions then were deposited at Basler Kantonalbank in Switzerland, where Mail Media had an account. And from there, Davis County Attorney Troy Rawlings is investigating whether it went into a Marshall Islands account in the name of Searchlight Holding Inc. to benefit, or even bribe,...

20h Gregg Phillips� @JumpVote We have verified more than three million votes cast by non-citizens. We are joining .@TrueTheVote to initiate legal action. #unrigged  

The Clintons were "dead broke" when they left the White House in 2000 ... now, after Hillary's 4 years as Secretary of State and 4 years running for the 2016 presidency, they are worth $125 million. If she wins in November, where will their net worth be in 2020 or 2024? Asking for Freepers usually well-informed opinions.

28 People matched the 5 White Balls, but nobody had PB 13 Combination. It'll be close to $1.3 BILLION on Wednesday.

A new poll by the Pew Research Center reveals significant levels of support for ISIS within the Muslim world. In 11 representative nation-states, up to 14 percent of the population has a favorable opinion of ISIS, and upwards of 62 percent "don't know" whether or not they have a favorable opinion of the Islamist group. In Pakistan, a nuclear weapons state, only 28 percent of the public view ISIS unfavorably. By this overwhelming degree of either tacit support or tolerance for ISIS in the country, ISIS should be considered as a potential proxy nuclear weapons power via its linkages and...

The Palestinian Authority (PA) celebrated Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day by denying its scope, Palestinian Media Watch revealed Sunday - claiming that instead of six million Jews killed by the Nazis, there were only 1-2 million. "Estimates regarding the number of Holocaust victims differ," an Op/Ed penned by columnist Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul for the official PA Al-Hayat Al-Jadida claimed. "The supporters of the Zionist movement have exaggerated the number of victims, claiming that it amounts to 6 million, whereas others, unbiased researchers, have estimated that there were between one and two million Jewish victims." "Regardless of the number, the bottom line...

NASA has just finished building a $350 million test facility in Gulfsport, La., despite the program it was designed for having been canceled nearly four years ago.

Retail sales of state-licensed weed in Washington topped $12 million by Sept. 8 … and sales keep climbing. The improvement of sales in recreational marijuana here mirrors the steep growth in sales in Colorado, where the recreational market out-sold medical for the first time in July (the latest numbers from that state). The Cannabist reports: “In July 2014, customers purchased more than $29.7 million in recreational marijuana — up from $24.7 million in June. Medical marijuana patients spent more than $28.9 million on marijuana in July — comparable to June’s $28.6 million in sales.” In Washington, there are now 55...

Despite President Obama’s assurances to the contrary, millions of Americans are discovering that they will not be able to keep their current health insurance when the Affordable Care Act takes full effect next year. Reports Tuesday from CBS and NBC News document this development. According to CBS, US insurance firms have sent health policy cancellation notices to more than 2 million people, with 800,000 in New Jersey alone. NBC estimates that 50 to 75 percent of the 14 million Americans .. can expect a cancellation letter, .. Mr. Obama has long insisted .. Americans who like their current health plan...

Before the Affordable Care Act became law in 2010, President Obama promised Americans they could keep their healthcare plan if they liked it. But already hundreds of thousands of citizens are receiving notification that their plans are being cancelled because they don't comply with the new law, and, according to NBC News, the Obama administration has known for at least three years the cancellations were coming. While campaigning for health care reform in 2009, Obama went out of his way to make one thing perfectly clear: if you like your current health care plan, you will be able to keep...

Yehuda Doron, the former treasurer of Kibbutz Shefayim, and his wife, Katrina, were convicted Sunday of stealing about 16.5 million shekels from the kibbutz, and of a number of serious financial offenses, which were carried out between 1996 and 2002. Yehuda Doron was born in Shefayim and lived there his whole life, until he and his family were forced to leave when the embezzlement was discovered. He served in several important positions over the years, mostly in the kibbutz's financial department. According to the verdict, he enjoyed unlimited trust from the kibbutz members who believed in his ability to steer...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The IRS is unable to account for $67 million spent from a slush fund established for Obamacare implementation, according to a Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) report released today. The “Health Insurance Reform Implementation Fund” (HIRIF) was tucked into Obamacare in order to give the IRS money to enforce the tax provisions of the healthcare law. The fund, totaling some $1 billion of taxpayer money, was used to roll out enforcement mechanisms for the approximately 50 tax provisions of Obamacare. According to the report: “Specifically, the IRS did not account for or attempt to quantify...

Just because they're already behind bars doesn't mean they aren't making out like bandits. Prisoner tax fraud has ballooned in recent years. In 2010, more than 91,000 inmate returns claimed $758 million in fraudulent refunds, a new audit from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration finds. That's more than double the previous year. While the IRS stopped the vast majority of fraudulent refunds from actually getting into the hands of prisoners, $35 million still slipped through the cracks.

Conservatives complain Sandy bill includes millions in unrelated spendingBy Erik Wasson and Kevin Bogardus - 12/17/12 12:33 PM ET Conservative groups say the Senate’s $60.4 billion Hurricane Sandy supplemental bill is loaded with millions of dollars in spending unrelated to damage from the devastating storm. The bill includes $2 million to fix museum roofs in Washington, D.C.; $100 million for Head Start centers; $348 million for damage to parks, including the Statue of Liberty’s island; and $4 million to repair the Kennedy Space Center and other launch sites. It also includes funding for commercial fisheries disasters for as far away...

*snip* Mrs. Pritzker has bundled at least $904,957 for Mr. Obama. A former board member of the Marmon Group, the Pritzker family owns as much as 40% of Marmon while Berkshire Hathaway owns the rest. Marmon and Berkshire own IMPulse, a transit-manufacturing firm, located in Mount Olive, North Carolina. IMPulse received or directed numerous construction projects that received millions in taxpayer-funded stimulus money. Among others, those projects include: A $485.8 million contract that was awarded for the extension of the Metro Gold Line from Pasadena to Azusa A San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) infrastructure project worth $67 million in...

'Green' Jobs Estimates Cost Taxpayers MillionsFeds spend $8 million, states $48 million on repetitive surveys By Don Carrington Feb. 27th, 2012 RALEIGH — Sometime in March, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics will release its first report estimating the number of “green” or “clean” jobs in the nation. The $8 million BLS project follows $48 million worth of stimulus grants that the Labor Department had made to individual states to produce their own green job definitions and estimates. North Carolina received $946,000 from the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for its study. While most states released...

Colleges pay presidents millions while raising tuitionBy Blake Ellis @CNNMoney December 20, 2011: 5:22 AM ET NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Some private colleges are paying their top executives millions of dollars, at the same time they're hiking tuition prices for students. Vanderbilt University paid its chancellor, Nicholas Zeppos, $1.9 million in 2009, according to the school's most recent tax filings -- enough for up to 43 students to attend Vanderbilt at current prices. His total pay includes a base salary of $673,002, as well as bonus and other compensation. That same year, Vanderbilt's tuition jumped 4.3%. Since then, the college...

DOJ AUDIT: $16 muffins, cups of coffee for $8.25… (First column, 2nd story, link ) Related stories: Spent $121 million on conferences in two years.. Read the original here: DOJ AUDIT: $16 muffins, cups of coffee for $8.25…